


Forgiveness

by Josselin



Series: Loyalty and Forgiveness [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 09:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14767265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: Laurent arrived alone.





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Captive Prince 10 Year Anniversary Celebration](http://josselinkohl.tumblr.com/post/173974155357/capri-month-this-year-captive-prince-turns-10).
> 
> Thank you to [Punk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk) for beta!

Laurent arrived alone. He always arrived alone, Damianos’s blond princeling, somehow sneaking away from the entourage that must follow him as one of the two Kings of legend, one of the founders of New Artes. But because he always arrived alone when he came to Kesus, and then she did him the favor of meeting with him privately rather than welcoming him formally in the hall. It was to her advantage not to draw attention to her location unduly. If satisfying Laurent’s periodic private demands to see the child kept Damianos from taking a personal interest in sending her away, she considered it a worthwhile bargain. 

This evening, she was alerted to his appearance by one of the servants, who said, “Lady, there is a rider--” and Jokaste nodded her understanding and went out to the stables. By the time she was outside, he had already dismounted his horse and his attention had been captured by the children playing in the garden. 

Jokaste walked over. Niobe and Leon were playing in the garden, some kind of game that involved each of them carrying a stick and brandishing it against some shrubbery. Their nurses were watching, chatting to each other on a bench while the children played, and Laurent stood a few paces away, his eyes fixed on Leon’s face.

Jokate dismissed the nurses, offering to watch the children herself, and when the older women had wandered back to the kitchens she took the seat they had been occupying on the bench. Laurent came and sat beside her. 

They watched the children. Leon’s stick broke in a particularly vehement attack on the shrubbery, and the game was temporarily halted while the two children searched that section of the garden for another stick. Then Leon objected to the fact that his new stick was smaller than Niobe’s stick and Niobe said that Leon should not have broken his first stick anyway. Jokaste thought that an argument was emerging, but a breath later they were jointly resuming their attack on the shrubbery and the alliance seemed strong again.

Laurent’s eyes were full. “He’s so big.”

Jokaste saw Leon every day, and so his growth was less noticeable to her than it would be to Laurent, who had last visited two seasons prior. 

“He’s four,” she said.

“Almost five,” said Laurent, and she supposed it did not surprise her that Laurent remembered the date of Leon’s birth as accurately as she did. 

“Yes,” she agreed. Leon was almost five, and he was big. He was the same size as Niobe, though Tassos’s daughter was a year and a half older, and he kept up with Niobe in their play, refusing to be surpassed by her in games or sports or contests. Niobe liked to remind him that he was younger than she was, which occasionally irritated Leon, but generally the two of them played together amicably. The week prior, Niobe had announced to her father that some day she was going to marry Leon. 

Jokaste had held still for a moment at the sideboard where she had been putting together a plate of cheese and fruit, waiting on Tassos’s reply. He seemed only amused. “Is that so?”

“Yes, I asked him and he agreed.”

“You will need to ask him again when you are an adult,” said Tassos indulgently, and that had been the end of Niobe’s pronouncement.

There were many reasons that Tassos might have been displeased to hear about Niobe’s intention of marrying Leon. His mother is my mistress, might have been one, or an objection that Niobe and Leon were too much like siblings to consider such a thing. He might have objected to the circumstances of Leon’s birth, or the persistent rumors of Leon’s father. He might have the mundane objection that Leon had no wealth to speak of, and that Niobe would have a handsome dowry. He might have had political thoughts for Niobe’s marriage. But he was an indulgent father, and he was similarly generous with Jokaste and her son, so she appreciated his sentiment. 

Leon and Niobe’s attack progressed from the shrubbery to the trunk of one of the small fruit trees. They struck it with their sticks and shouted.

Laurent kept his eyes on the children but spoke to Jokaste. “In the combined kingdom--there is the matter of an heir.”

Jokaste’s eyes flicked over to his face next to her. He was still looking at Leon. “An heir.”

“Neither Damianos nor myself intend to marry.”

There was little sense in being coy; he already knew her position. He had known it from their first meeting in that damn cell in Mellos. If he was raising the subject of an heir here, with her, he already knew what she was going to say. “I wish for Leon to be king,” she said. For him to have broached the subject now, he had to wish it also.

“There is another child,” he said.

That was a revelation. She looked over at him again, his face was even. He said nothing more about the other child, and Jokaste was almost grateful. She wasn’t certain what lengths she would go to, for Leon, and she wasn’t certain she wished to find out. Still, she could not help but wonder. She had heard nothing of another child, and she paid attention to the gossip from the new capital as much as was possible in central Kesus. If there was another child and she had not heard of it, it meant that the other child was either well hidden or very new.

“Leon is older,” she surmised. It was an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless.

“Yes,” said Laurent, confirming, and she made a note to herself. 

There was a period of silence between the two of them. Leon and Niobe had conquered the tree and were now engaged in some kind of game which involved walking in a very peculiar manner. 

“Come to New Artes,” said Laurent. “Present Leon to the court.”

A hundred thoughts ran through Jokaste’s head. Was Leon safer here, in Kesus, where he was unknown but unprotected? Or would he be safer in the middle of both of the King’s armies, where there were a hundred guards in the palace and many more eyes looking out for him? What would Tassos think of her departure? He was unlikely to welcome her back if they left on poor terms, and so she and Leon would need to have some alternative arrangements for when they left New Artes. If they left New Artes? When. If. 

“That would be welcome?” said Jokaste, meaning, Did you plan this with Damianos?

“There is the matter of an heir,” said Laurent, which meant, No. 

So this was his idea alone. Jokaste thought further. What would be Damianos’s welcome? Laurent must have thought him at least amenable to the idea to have suggested it, but that only guaranteed that his response would not be violent, not that he would be warm. What was Laurent’s plan for making Leon the heir? How would it proceed?

Her thoughts turned to practical matters. She had no appropriate wardrobe for presenting herself and Leon in the court, especially if Leon’s presentation was to be appropriate to a prince, and she lived dependent on Tassos’s generosity. She could not imagine imposing on Tassos to equip them to depart, and she had no ability to sell any of her own possessions with any amount of speed. 

“I would need money,” she told Laurent, testing him. 

He glanced her direction. “How much?”

She tallied what it would take, for the travel across two provinces and for the supplies for the journey and to make them presentable when they arrived. She spoke a figure, wondering at the same time whether it would be enough and also feeling that it sounded high.

Laurent nodded. “I’ll have it sent,” he said.

She should have asked for more, she thought, and then she thought, I have still not agreed, but Laurent acted as though the matter between them were already settled. 

“Come for his name day,” said Laurent, and it was Jokaste’s turn to nod.

The evening turned dark, and Jokaste called to Leon and Niobe to take them inside and return them to their nurses. Laurent returned to his horse and departed. Jokaste went to say good night to the children. “Tell me a story, Mama,” said Leon.

“Tell us a story about a prince,” said Niobe.

“Once,” said Jokaste, “There was a prince named Leon.”

“A prince named Leon,” said Leon, tickled.

“Don’t interrupt the story!” said Niobe, and Jokaste told them a tale about a prince who became friends with a lion. 

She retreated afterward to her own bed. A prince named Leon, she thought. A king named Leon. She imagined presenting Leon to the court, of how the others would look at him, wondering if he was going to be their future king. She imagined how they would look at her, standing next to him. She thought of seeing Laurent on his throne, rather than in riding clothes in the garden in Kesus. And she thought of seeing Damianos again. 

She could negotiate with Laurent. She could negotiate with Laurent without feeling. With him, it was just words and ambitions. It had been that way from the beginning. She and Laurent had negotiated with words from their first encounter to when he had slipped away to let her out of the wagon. Laurent came to Kesus to see Leon every few months and they could speak and they understood each other.

She was not certain she could do the same with Damianos, because sometimes just thinking of him made her heart race a little bit like it had in the beginning.

The money arrived as Laurent had said it would. Jokaste began her preparations. It was easier than expected to tell Tassos that she was taking Leon to meet his father, and it was harder than she expected to explain to Leon what their journey was about. 

When they arrived at the new palace and dismounted from the carriage, Leon was hesitant, and his hand was sweaty where he clutched at her hand, but he stood tall and looked around. 

Laurent stood at the top of the steps and waited, in the Veretian style, but Damianos walked down the steps to the courtyard, and then went further and went down on one knee in front of Leon to greet him at eye level. 

“Hello, Leon,” said Damianos. Jokaste had both forgotten and not forgotten the timbre of his voice. 

“Hello,” said Leon. 

“I’m very happy to meet you,” said Damianos, holding Leon’s gaze. Jokaste herself looked up, and her eyes met Laurent’s. She let her expression show her appreciation for Leon’s welcome. 

Damianos said nothing to Jokaste in greeting. But he was kind to Leon, and after a few minutes Leon even accepted holding Damianos’s hand to be led up the steps to Laurent and the rest of the palace, and the three of them walked up the steps together, linked hand in hand through Leon. 

Jokaste could see Laurent in so much of how the new palace was run. There were things that were familiar and Akielon: the style of music played after meals, the placement of the tables in the hall. But there were other elements where she clearly saw Laurent’s influence. She and Leon had been assigned guest quarters, which might have been the work of any steward, but Laurent had left her a small trunk of silver pieces inside one of the rooms, and a note indicating she should tell him if she required anything else. Leon’s nurse had traveled along with them, but they arrived at the palace to find that there were tutors already in residence who were eager to begin lessons.

A routine was quickly established. Jokaste and Leon ate breakfast together, and then Leon had lessons and Jokaste indulged in quiet leisure. She read in the library when the weather was poor, and sometimes walked in the gardens when it was fine. In the afternoons, she took Leon outside. There were a few other children living in the palace--mostly Veretians--and Leon watched their games seriously for a few days before accepting an invitation to join in. Once a week or so one of the Kings would spend an afternoon with Leon, playing in the garden with him or showing him some new portion of the palace. 

Laurent won Leon over by gifting him a puppy, and then their adventures involved the dog as well, with Ursa following Leon around as soon as they emerged outside, and Jokaste having to pull Leon away from the dog’s bed in the stables when it was time for Leon to say goodnight. 

Their role in the court was not formalized, but Laurent had provided for their needs and no one made them feel unwelcome or questioned. When they first arrived Jokaste paid attention to the gossip--reported to her by one of her ladies, Kyrina--that they had come to the capital for Leon to be acknowledged. As weeks passed, the court seemed to take Damen’s lack of rejection and their continued presence as a kind of acknowledgement itself, and the gossip faded and people began to talk of Leon as Damianos’s son and presumed heir even though that had not been announced.

Jokaste was unable to find out anything about the other child. She did not want to ask about it too directly, but there was no other child living in the court and no rumors of one either. She reviewed gossip about the other lovers of the Kings in general, and it was only said that they were true to one another in the way of a romantic ballad.

It must have been prior, then, she assumed, and that meant it must have been from Damianos’s time in Vere, since Laurent had agreed that Leon was the older of the children. The child must still be in Vere, perhaps hidden because the Veretians abhorred bastards. She wondered if it was a girl or a boy. She realized that she had been assuming that it was Damianos’s child, but that Laurent had never specifically said, and she wondered briefly if it was Laurent’s. Would he not favor his own offspring? Or was his adoration of Damianos so complete that he even preferred the man’s child. If it were Laurent’s, what if it were a girl? What a match the two children would make. 

Jokaste had not been able to stop herself from imagining the future from the beginning, but she had more confidence now in some of the things she imagined. Damianos spoke to Leon of the future. Of giving him a pony the following season, or showing him snow in Vere the following year. He would not say those things if he intended for Leon to leave, which meant that for Damianos, there was a place for Leon in his life and he was cordial to Jokaste when he spent time with Leon. 

Laurent was seeing to their expenses, covering many of the costs of Leon’s tutelage directly, and providing for others by periodically and secretly refilling the small trunk of coins he had given to Jokaste. Jokaste had almost laughed, the first time that she had opened the trunk to see it brimming at the top again. A magically refilling trunk of coins, she thought. It was just what she had always hoped for in a husband.

Jokaste had wondered, when Laurent had first told her to come to the capital, if he imagined her and Damianos having another child. If she was being summoned to the capital not only because of Leon, but because of herself. There was the matter of an heir, he had said, but she knew that a single heir was rarely enough to satisfy a kingdom when there were so many things that might befall a young prince. But she said nothing about it, and neither Laurent nor Damianos raised the possibility.

When they had been in the capital for about a season, Leon became ill. 

Jokaste was the first to notice it, when Leon was reluctant to eat one morning and then his forehead felt warm and he just leaned against her instead of wanting to go off and play. She tucked him back into bed to rest and kept to their rooms for the morning, sending Kyrina off to explain to his tutors that he was not feeling well. 

The news must have spread from Kyrina or the tutors, because around the noon meal Laurent arrived at their chambers, checking on Leon himself, placing a hand on Leon’s forehead and smoothing his hair. 

“Children are sometimes sick,” said Jokaste.

“Yes,” said Laurent, and he left, but a few moments later a Veretian physician appeared and checked Leon over thoroughly, so Jokaste was uncertain that she had been convincing. 

The physician introduced himself in Veretian as Paschal, inspected Leon for spots, asked Leon a few questions in careful Akielon, and then suggested rest and some broth. Broth appeared from the kitchens, but Leon could only be coaxed to drink a few mouthfuls before falling fitfully asleep again, and Jokaste sat by his bedside. There was a book of poetry open next to her but she paid no attention to it.

She thought of dozens of things that might happen. Leon might awake and feel fine, and be begging to go play with the other children after supper. Leon might sleep for a another day and awake the next morning having seemingly never even been ill. Or Leon might be sick for many days. The physician might not be effective. The Kings might blame the physician for Leon’s sickness. The Kings might blame her for Leon’s sickness. At some point they might try to remove her from Leon’s room, if they thought that somehow she was causing him to be ill. 

This might be the beginning of a plague. It was impossible to say what might happen. Leon might develop the type of spots that the physician had checked for, or his fever might become worse and settle in some part of his body. He might be paralyzed, as children struck with fevers sometimes were, or blind. She might have to take him away again, since there would be no place for a bastard prince with that kind of weakness. 

She thought of the worst, but in a detached way. She thought of Leon’s death but not of what that would mean to her to lose her son, but what she would need to do. She would still need to leave. Undoubtedly someone would blame her. She did something, or had failed to do something. It would be her fault if Leon did not live. 

Then she forced herself to stop thinking, for a while, and simply counted Leon’s breaths. 

By the evening, Leon seemed worse, awake and moaning listlessly. Jokaste was grateful for the reappearance of the physician, who produced some kind of herb draught this time. The draught made Leon cough as she helped him to sit up to drink it, and she couldn’t help but think of the medicine given to Theomedes five years prior. But Laurent would not have sent a physician he did not trust implicitly, and it was a relief to see Leon relax a little as the draught took effect and finally go into a more restful sleep. 

The physician stayed, now, arranging his supplies on a side table and lighting a candle and taking a chair in the corner of the room to rest. Jokaste stayed in her position close to the bed. 

Damianos came. He entered without knocking. He opened the door and then looked around, taking in Leon sleeping and Jokaste and Paschal keeping watch. 

“The Prince is resting easily now,” said Paschal, in Veretian, and it was the first time that Jokaste had heard someone refer to Leon as a prince. She had expected it since she planned his conception, first that Damianos would be persuaded to marry her before his birth, or at least brought around to acknowledging him once he had arrived. And then she had imagined the same for Kastor, who had at least seemed prepared to take Leon as his heir even if he had not yet been turned to marriage. Living in Kesus, even before Laurent had made his first visit, she had still imagined it sometimes, thinking of Leon growing up and then completing some grand adventure that lead to the claiming of his birthright. 

She had never thought that she would first hear it in Veretian.

Damianos merely nodded at the physician, seemingly taking no notice of Leon’s title and accepting the report on his health. She watched him for a minute. He was both the same and different as when she had first met him. His appearance was much unchanged. He had more scars, and more breadth to his shoulders, but his height, his clean-shaven jaw, and the short curls of his hair were all the same. His expression was often different, though. He was slower to laughter. His regard had a depth and heaviness it hadn’t when they had first met.

She wondered if he would leave, having checked on Leon and received the physician’s report, but he did not, and then he crossed the room and seated himself on the chair next to her. 

With the physician sitting in the corner and Leon sleeping in the bed, it reminded her of the awkwardness that had accompanied visits from her very first suitor, when her mother had sat across from them in the sitting room and stared at each of them as they made small talk as though she were watching a sporting match.

There was a period of quiet. They all sat, watching Leon. Leon slept. He rolled over at one point, which caused all three of the adults to sit up a bit straighter in their chairs, but once turned on his stomach he continued sleeping obliviously. 

Jokaste sat back in her chair. Beside her, Damianos did the same.

Jokaste did not usually speak without consideration. She tended to plan her words, and to think about how they would be heard, and to imagine the possible courses of action that might result from them. She would often rehearse conversations in her head multiple times, planning for what the other person might say, and then execute the conversation with the other person only to continue rehashing it in her head, evaluating again where she might have said something different or how she should have done it better.

She had not planned what she said that evening, but it felt somehow that it didn’t matter. In the darkness of Leon’s bedroom, where she was already sitting next to Leon and Damianos and had of them all she was going to have anyway, she spoke with less thought than she usually did.

She used a low voice, because Leon was sleeping. “He is yours.”

Damianos glanced her direction, and she turned her face from Leon for a moment to look back at him. 

“You will not believe me,” she said. “I would not believe me, if I were you. But he is yours.” She also did not usually say things that would not be believed. Words were for the effect that they could produce, not because airing them had some relief for the soul. The night had taken her outside her usual self.

“You are certain?”

“Yes.” 

It had been a source of anxiety to her for many months, after Damianos had been shipped away, and she had wished then to have been less sure. She had feared that the child would come early, rather than coming on time and being framed as coming early, and she had worried that one of her women might have been tracking her cycles and her visits with Damianos and with Kastor too closely. 

“I do believe you,” said Damianos, after a long moment of silence. He hadn’t needed to say that--he hadn’t been obligated to acknowledge her pronouncement at all--and she assumed that he meant it honestly, because that was how he was. If it had been Laurent, he would have agreed. Laurent would have agreed without asking if she was certain, because it suited the plan for an heir to have it be Damianos’s child, Laurent already behaved as though that were the case. But Damianos’s simple honesty was refreshing, sometimes.

They were still looking at each other. Jokaste had looked at Leon as a baby sometimes, and had thought, I can see Damianos in him. She looked now at Damianos, and thought, I can see Leon in him. 

There were many other things she was suddenly tempted to say, other things that probably wouldn’t be believed. Explanations for what had happened, the letter she had seen from the Regent to Kastor, the deal she had struck with Adrastus and the favor he had asked because of it, the way she had seen Damianos argue with Nikandros and decided it was futile to again discuss what was happening with Theomedes, and her fears for herself and for Leon, who had been at first only a hope and then only a thought that she held secretly to herself. 

She didn’t say any of them. They sat in silence for another time. Leon roused briefly, and said, sleepily, “Mama?”

“Yes?” she said, but he was asleep again before saying anything more. 

Damianos reached a hand out and squeezed her arm reassuringly, and it felt like forgiveness. 

It was one of those nights that was only one night, but by the morning it felt like a lifetime. 

Laurent arrived with the dawn, at about the same time that Leon awoke.

Paschal checked Leon over, and Laurent turned to Damianos. Father and son objected to the fussing with the same toss of their heads, Leon insisting that he was “better” and did not want to drink more bitter medicine, and Damianos telling Laurent that he was “not tired.” Jokaste smiled. 

Paschal agreed with Leon’s assessment of improved health, ignored Damianos’s pronouncement, and suggested more sleep for all parties, Leon especially, and then later in the day, some broth and some sunshine. 

“I will sleep if Ursa can come into the bed with me,” said Leon, his mind always on his puppy and never hesitating to use a negotiating advantage. 

Jokaste opened her mouth to say no, but Damianos was already saying, “It can hardly be bad, just this once.”

Jokaste turned to Laurent. “This is your fault.” She meant because he had given Leon the puppy in the first place.

But Laurent seemed to take a broader responsibility for it, smiling, and simply replying, “Yes.”


End file.
